Secrets and Misdemeanors

This is a funny, easy romance tale. Easy read. Light, diverting read -- not a realistic BUT cheery coming out romance. Like straight romance tales--they aren't real--but oh how do we wish that our lives were so easy, cheesy, and HOT!!!

David Thornton is the 41 year old senior partner of a successful Los Angeles lawfirm, who seemingly lives only for two things, his work and his two children (from a marriage he'd rather forget). When David catches the eye of Lyle, a cute twentysomething construction worker outside his office window, David feels a stirring that simultaneously excites and disturbs him. Catching on to David's dilema, Jennifer - his law partner and best friend - encourages him to take the chance and approach the young man. David and Lyle are soon seeing each other, and Lyle moves in with David temporarily when he has problems with his roommate. But when David's ex, Annette, discovers David's long-dormant secret, she alienates the kids against him and threatens to keep David from seeing them. With Jennifer's help, they face decisions that will impact on the rest of their lives. A very sweet, fluffy romance novel, with likeable, realistic characters in a story that seems like a gay male variation of "Pretty Woman" in parts. Recommended, with five stars out of five.

First of all I have to check the meaning of Misdemeanors in my dictionary, and I didn't find it!!! I think to have understood the meaning in the context of the book, but, hey, my compliments to an author who has chosen to use it in her title! All right, after I think five books I have read by G.A. Hauser, I have to admit that I like her books. Point. I don't know why, maybe cause she satisfies the romantic in me. Like in this one: Lyle is a 25 years old construction worker. He is handsome and nice: the first scene you read of him, I have imagined him like that hunk in the Coca Cola's ad (remember him? that lucious guy who enters in a office full of women bringing on his shoulder a big pack?). And Lyle is gay and he has an instant crush on David, the owner of the building he is working on and a big-money lawyer. David is a 41 years old handsome nearly divorced man. Unlike Lyle, he is not the hunk type, he is more like a Richard Gere of Kurosawa's movie rather than the American Gigolo's era. And since his divorce he has had a lonely and all work life. His only joy are those days he spend with his sons. But he has a bitch as ex wife and sometime she manages to ruin also that. David is not gay, but he has no problem to admit that even him is attracted to a beautiful man like Lyle (and maybe this is the only part of the book I have found a little to fast, David sets his mind on the gay thing too fast), and when Lyle makes a move on him, he eagerly accepts the unexpected gift he is receiving. And when he has a taste of such a sweet man, he seems to be not able to go back to his old life: he wants Lyle all for him, everytime and everywhere. But now is Lyle that makes a step back: all is happening too fast and too strong, how he can give up his shitty life to live in a penthouse with a man like David, tender and caring? HOW!!! Well, Lyle, sets your mind in the right track and accepts the dreams of every women on earth! And joke apart, this is maybe one of the things why I like so much G.A. Hauser's books, the subtle (and sometime not so subtle) irony she puts in everything and the glimpses on a all-glittering world no one of us will have never the chance to see in person: money, fashion, movieland and thing like that. In the end my comparison to Richard Gere for David is not so strange: this story is more or less like a M/M Pretty Woman, with our David in the role of the too perfect and without a life businessman and Lyle in the role of the pennyless lover who is too proud to be kept by his older and richer "daddy".

The chemistry between the two leading men is instant when construction worker Lyle takes one look at handsome lawyer David. From then on the rollercoaster of fun begins. Hot sex, great characters, and real challenges. Fantastic. I read it in one night! You'll love it.